


Teaching Aids.

by Hedge_witch



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Complaining about the students, Drinking away the pain, Gen, Hiding in the staffroom, One Shot, Teaching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-05
Updated: 2012-07-05
Packaged: 2017-11-09 05:37:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/451938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hedge_witch/pseuds/Hedge_witch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's ten-past five on a Friday evening and the Hogwarts professors have retreated to the staffroom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Teaching Aids.

**Author's Note:**

> I have been observing lessons in a local school this week, which has included a lot of sitting in the staffroom listening to the teachers moan. I was therefore inspired to write a little skit about the trials facing the Hogwarts staff. (I would like to point out that the inclusion of copious amounts of alcohol does not reflect reality, this is merely my personality coming through.) 
> 
> Anyway I will get beck on the long-neglected Flamel Club. (Sorry everyone, there was an MPhil thesis and everything went to hell. I will get back to it I promise.)

It was ten minutes past five on Friday evening and, turning the last corner before the staff common room at a brisk pace, Remus Lupin almost collided with an equally hasty Professor McGonagall. A crisis was averted by Minerva’s feline reflexes and she shot him a brief, tight smile as they rapidly crossed the remaining ten yards, throwing the door open and striding directly across the room to the capacious staff ‘medicine-chest’. 

It was only after they had poured themselves each a generous gin and tonic and had both taken the first, necessary sip that Remus felt able to recommence civilised conversation. 

“Fifth-years?” He enquired delicately, taking in Minerva’s still slightly haunted expression. 

She shuddered. “Fifth-year Gryffindors and Slytherins, I’ve had to assign at least three detentions, the bedpans in the Hospital Wing are going to erode from all the scrubbing.”

Remus winced and executed a rapid side-step as Filius barrelled into the room with the same single-minded purpose that had animated his colleagues, pouring himself a large sherry with shaking hands. 

“Merlin’s beard, Cheering Charms on a Friday afternoon,” he moaned, “what could have possessed me to plan that?” 

“I still find that hope triumphs over experience at the start of term,” McGonagall observed dryly. 

“Well I suppose you might have thought that it would be a nice, good-humoured class to end the week with?” Remus observed rather nervously.

They both shot him pitying looks and Minerva patted him gently on the arm, “it's very pleasant that you still think that way Remus,” she began, choosing her words carefully, “but you really must stop it, effective lesson-planning serves one purpose and one purpose alone.”

“And that is?”

“Self-preservation!” Filius squeaked, “it's a jungle out there Remus!” His eyes swiveled rather wildly towards the door, “and the little beasts will destroy you unless you keep them constantly distracted!”

As if to underline his point the door shot open and Pomona entered, looking as though she had gone several rounds with a Devil’s Snare armed only with an ineffective lighter. 

“Bloody Slytherins!” she cried “all my second-years are now a week behind schedule due to their ridiculous sartorial hang-ups.”

“Ah, the mandrake lessons?” Minerva enquired as she passed her fuming colleague a drink. 

“What else?” Pomona seethed, “I explain to them time and time again that the cry of the mandrake is fatal but will the little brats consent to wear the ‘pink earmuffs’?” She snorted, “will they hell!” She took a large swallow of her drink, “apparently none of them want to look ‘gay’, so of course I have to put the entire lesson on hold in order to explain to them, that yes, throwing that word around in a derogatory fashion does count as homophobia, and no, I will not tolerate it in my class!” 

Remus frowned, “you ought to have a word with Severus about that.”

‘Oh I will!’ Pomona took another sip of her drink, which seemed to calm her somewhat, “Severus doesn’t stand for any of that nonsense, its one of his few appealing traits. However, I’ll wait until later to raise that particular problem, and on a related subject, I suggest we all move to leave a clear line between the door and the Firewhisky, I overheard him at lunch, saying that his last class today was the third-year Gryffindors and Slytherins.”

There was a collective groan and the assembled staff shuffled quickly out of the way. Not a moment later the door was flung open and Severus Snape entered like a black day in Whitby, advancing upon the drinks cabinet as though he was contemplating doing violence to it. The tension in the room heightened. Though most of the student-body would have claimed that Severus presented an uniformly unpleasant countenance to the world, his colleagues had uncovered subtleties in his range of hostile facial expressions. Unfortunately, at that moment he was wearing the scowl that was usually reserved for the discipline of Divination in general, Sybill Trelawney in particular, marking OWL papers and Neville Longbottom. 

“If I go out and look at the Gryffindor hourglass Severus, am I liable to have a heart-attack?” Minerva enquired dryly. 

Severus glanced up, his eyes narrowed. “I took ten points apiece from Messers Potter and Weasley for wasting valuable ingredients by throwing them across the classroom and for causing significant disruption, five points from Mr Malfoy for sinking to their level and responding in kind, and no less that twenty points from Mr Longbottom for leaving his cauldron unattended, allowing his newt to escape and for causing a small fire.” He took a long swallow of whiskey and turned his attention to Pomona. “You have a couple of Ravenclaws due for detention tomorrow afternoon correct?”

“Yes, I caught them taunting Eagleton about only getting an E in her latest Arithmancy essay in my class. I’ll have them shelling Puffapods, why Severus, do you want to borrow one?”

He nodded, “send me the most egregious offender, I’ve got frog intestines spattered across several of the desks and I refuse on principle to clean them up myself. When one of the Gryffindors inevitably pushes me too far on Monday morning I’ll send them over to you.” 

Pomona chuckled, “I’m sure they’ll be thanking their lucky stars, very well, I’ll send you Alstone, he’s been trying my patience recently, you should be getting over being a twerp by the time you reach sixth year.” 

Severus snorted and shot Remus a significant look, which the latter chose to ignore, and the teachers gradually drifted into their customary chairs and settled down for a satisfying series of complaints. 

“Did you get the new Ministry booklet on ‘effective careers advice’ aimed at ‘maximising the students opportunities for personal development’?” Pomona asked with some relish. 

Filius groaned, “please tell me they haven’t shifted the Quidditch rings on entry to the post-NEWTS fast-track scheme. Half of the Ravenclaw seventh-years are on the verge of a nervous breakdown as it is. I’ve had to personally inspect at least five meticulously colour-coded revision plans this week and no doubt the rest of them will soon panic and follow suit.” 

Minerva gave a hollow little laugh “Count your blessings Filius, at least most of your lot have achievable goals. Gryffindor’s contribution to society this year will apparently be made up entirely of professional Quidditch players and Aurors, no matter how many times I explain that unless they’re something special in the air or they’ve managed to get into NEWT level potions, neither of these goals is remotely within their reach.” 

Severus raised an eyebrow. “If this is aimed at me Minerva I will repeat for the hundredth time that I have no intention of relaxing my admissions criteria for NEWT level. I suffer enough incompetence for the five years I am required to teach the lot of them to sign up for another two just so a few Gryffindors can retain their delusions of heroism for a little while longer.” 

“I’m merely suggesting that you admit students with E's.”

“The examiners are so woefully lax that anyone prepared to expend a modicum of effort on revision can achieve an E. Lupin here managed to scrape one in Potions and whenever he approached a cauldron I always ended up expending energy I could have been using elsewhere on maintaining a Shielding Charm.”

Remus smiled as he poured himself another glass. “Why Severus, I begin to feel somewhat closer to discovering the person who set up a rather complex ward that refused me entry to the Potions classroom for some weeks in sixth-year.”

Severus‘ face remained studiously blank. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about Lupin, though if such measures were indeed taken, then the person who put them in place was undoubtedly performing a valuable public service.” 

Out of earshot of the two men Filius leaned over to Minerva and whispered “Lily Evans, I’d stake my wand on it” in her ear. 

“Count your blessings you are only receiving written jargon from the Ministry,” said Minerva grimly. “I’ve had to double the number of governors meetings this year due to the situation with the Dementors, and they’re insisting that someone from the Department for Wizarding Education sits in, and they are insufferable as a rule. Their latest obsession is the safety precautions for Hogsmeade weekends.” She rolled her eyes. “They seem to have forgotten that they insisted we acquiesce to the presence of those ghastly creatures in the first place.” She stood up to refill her glass. “And of course Albus has no concept of the day-to-day organisation of these things, not to mention the reams of paperwork. He thinks he can invite them in for tea and sherbet lemons and twist them all around his little finger. He has no idea about the legwork I have to do behind the scenes to get them sitting nicely in the Headmasters Office as opposed to hauling us all down for a ‘training weekend’ at the Ministry in the first place.” She sighed, “if I didn’t know that it would cause uproar I’d cancel all Hogsmeade weekends for the rest of the year and save myself the bother.”

“Merlin, are you sure you don’t want to give it a try Minerva?” Severus drawled, “I’d back you to the hilt. There’s nothing worse that tripping over the little brats in the Three Broomsticks.” 

Remus smirked, “well personally I think that stumbling over them in the Hogs Head would be worse.” 

“Lets just hope they stay clear of the Shrieking Shack,” Severus remarked pointedly, earning himself a sharp glare from Minerva. 

Seeking to divert the conversation into safer waters, Pomona cleared her throat and piped up. “On the subject of Hogsmeade, I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news, a friend of mine in the Wet Office is convinced that the first snow will be falling on the Thursday before the next Hogsmeade weekend, and apparently it will settle.” 

A chorus of groans arose as a result of this unwelcome information 

“Brilliant” groused Severus, “so we will be declining from the bare semblance of control we normally maintain to outright anarchy.” He glanced at Filius, “I don’t suppose you could go out with warming charms the night before and melt the bloody stuff before it turns the heads of the entire school.”

“Vetoed,” said Remus mildly, “I like snow.”

Severus scowled, “if anyone even thinks about throwing a snowball within a hundred feet of me...”

Pomona laughed. “Severus, half of the students are convinced that you are a vampire who can read their thoughts, the other half have settled for attributing every unsolved murder in recent wizarding history, and some of the solved ones, to you. No-one is going to be foolhardy enough to try anything of the sort.”

Severus looked sceptically at Remus. “I fail to be reassured Pomona.” 

The conversation might have deteriorated from there but it was interrupted by a rather prissy knock at the door. Filius grimaced as he walked over to admit Percy Weasley, who looked somewhat shocked at encountering the Charms Professor with a half-empty bottle of Firewhiskey in his hand. 

‘I am sorry to disturb you professors,” he began, rather stiffly, “but I’m afraid there’s a situation in the Library. For a reason I fail to comprehend, one of the first-year Hufflepuffs brought an owl in there and needless to say, the poor thing started to panic. It has knocked quite a few books off the shelves and some of the more advanced volumes have started screaming. Madam Pince is in a bit of a state and has threatened to close the Library for the rest of the weekend and quite a few of the Ravenclaws are now in tears...”

Remus raised his eyebrows and looked round at his colleagues, only to find them all pointedly avoiding his eyes.

Eventually Minerva glanced up and gave Remus a wry look. “Sounds like a mixed-house scenario Remus and you know the rules about that...”

Remus sighed, “If you can’t pin a crisis on one of the Heads of Houses then it defaults to the Defence Professor, or the newest staff member, due to some guff about giving them ‘experience’, happily for everyone else most of the time they’re one and the same person.” 

He hauled himself up and gestured to the Firewhiskey. “There had better be some of that left when I return.” He looked over at Severus and Minerva, “are we playing a game of Risk as usual after dinner?”

Severus sneered, “defeating you roundly will give me great satisfaction after that day I’ve had. My rooms, eight o’clock.” He then turned back to Minerva, drawing his chair closer and embarking once again on his long-running attempt to get the Weasley twins expelled, taking out his careful log of all their misdemeanors, complete with illustrative diagrams. 

Remus took a last restorative swallow of his drink, girded his loins and headed back out into the fray.


End file.
